Mikk Kasesalk: Is cheap vodka Estonia's engine for development?
As unskilled jobs continue to disappear all over the world and the future belongs to jobs requiring intellectual efforts, I cannot understand the government's decision to continue underfunding research and higher education, writes Mikk Kasesalk.
Society develops and blossoms with the support of its clever members. Our best chance of successfully continuing to survive is to value intellectual ability as the state's engine for development. The focus of Jüri Ratas' government has unfortunately shifted from governance to exercising authority, and that is not in the interest of Estonia or its citizens. The Centre Party has become an importer of mediocrity.
Behind Estonia's success thus far is the principle that the best are rewarded. Everyone who wants and is capable of putting in more effort will do better in life. Social media and the partisan amateur media flourishing in its shadow have made it possible for political parties with extremist and destructive views to manipulate people.
Now these "evil forces" are also reaching the backwoods of mediocrity, where nobody reads the daily paper or watches "Aktuaalne kaamera," but a precisely targeted 20-character meme brimming over with half-truths is shared with the utmost fervor.
Instead of deceiving people with cheap vodka and free stuff and continuing to make bad promises in exchange for vote loyalties, the government needs to understand how to establish an environment for development in which the next generations will grow up for whom putting in effort and giving one's all would be everyday policy, and in which there are enough freedoms and opportunities for the clever to be able to generate value for themselves and for society, and, in doing so, provide a better life for everyone.
As unskilled jobs continue to disappear all over the world and the future belongs to jobs requiring intellectual efforts, I cannot understand the government's decision to continue underfunding research and higher education. It is likewise unclear based on the state budget strategy what the current government believes to be Estonia's engine for development. Cheap vodka?
More and more, however, it appears to be the case that the 99,671 people who voted for the Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE) in the Riigikogu elections have, with the prime minister's tacit approval, hijacked Estonia's future, and I as a citizen of the Republic of Estonia am not okay with that!
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Editor: Aili Vahtla
